West Wind, XII.

The cricket did not actually seek the hearth,
but the thicket of carpet beneath the refriger-
ator. The whirring above was company, and
from it issued night and day the most prized
gift of the gods: warmth. Especially in the
evenings the cricket was happy, and sang.
Later, in the night, it crept out. There was not
a single night when it did not find, sooner or
later, a sweet crumb, and a small plump seed of
some sort between the floorboards. Thus, it
got used to hope. It revised altogether its idea
of what the world was like, and of what was
going to happen next, or, even, eventually. It
thought: how sufficient are these empty rooms!
It thought: here I am still, in my black suit,
warm and content—and drew a little music
from its dark thighs. As though the twilight
underneath the refrigerator were the world. As
though the winter would never come.